1. Field of Invention
The insant invention relates to the area of ovens for commercial and other large volume cooking, such as restaurant ovens. More particularly, the invention relates to an oven for the high efficiency cooking of several pizzas or other food items at the same time.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have long been ovens for cooking food items, such as pizzas, in large quantities. A problem with these ovens has been that the persons operating the same must periodically rotate and reposition the items to achieve even and uniform cooking. Also, and even more importantly, has been the fact that pizza ovens and the like, as known in the prior art, require between ten and fifteen minutes to accomplish satisfactory and complete cooking thereof. Accordingly, a restaurant or so-called pizza parlor has been inherently limited in its capacity to furnish completed pizzas to customers by the period required for the cooking of a pizza therein; resulting in the revenue and income of a typical pizza restaurant being more a limitation related to the cooking speed of their ovens than the customer base itself. In addition, prior art pizza ovens do not utilize available heat efficiently and, resultantly, significant thermal values escape from the door of such prior art units thereby diminishing the cooking capacity of the oven, and increasing the energy demands thereof, increasing cooling requirements for the restaurant, and causing undue discomfort.
The prior art, as is best known to the inventor, is represented by U.S. Pat. No. 5,492,055 (1996) to Nevin, et al, entitled Pizza Oven. Such art however does not combine overhead radiant heating with underside conductive heating through use of a rotating heat reservoir as is set forth herein.